by Jon Styf
A supplier will spend $790 million to build two facilities at BlueOval City to supply Ford’s new electric truck factory, according to Tennessee’s Department of Economic and Community Development.
On Thursday morning, the new Magna 800,000-square-foot frame and battery enclosures facility and a 140,000-square-foot seating facility were announced along with a third facility for stamping and assembly in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee.
The announcement did not reveal how much Tennessee would be paying in incentives for the project. Those are expected in an online dashboard within 30 days of the announcement.
The Tennessee Legislature previously approved $884 million in incentives for Ford at the facility during a special session in October 2021.
In all, Magna is expected to employ 1,300 at the three facilities with 750 at the battery enclosure plant and 300 at the seating plant.
The plants are expected to be ready for production in 2025. The components will be used on production of the Ford F-150 Lightning trucks produced at the site. Ford is expected to be able to produce 500,000 electric trucks a year at full production.
“The $790 million investment from Magna will further shape the economic landscape of Lawrence and Haywood counties and strengthen the electric vehicle supply chain in Tennessee for years to come,” Commissioner Stuart C. McWhorter of the Economic and Community Development said in a statement.
The third site will be a 400,000-square-foot stamping and assembly plant with 250 employees that will produce truck frames in Lawrenceburg at the Team Lawrence Commerce Park – West.
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Jon Styf is an award-winning editor and reporter of The Center Square who has worked in Illinois, Texas, Wisconsin, Florida and Michigan in local newsrooms over the past 20 years, working for Shaw Media, Hearst and several other companies.
Photo “BlueOval City” by Ford.
I have to agree with these comments. @JoeBlow I was thinking the same thing. How about instead of the “incentives” for the company we make it so favorable to live here that the companies will want to move here due to the increased labor pool and low cost of living. With no personal income tax, no capital gains tax, next is to start lowering the sales tax (drive it to 0%). Sure the corporations will have to pay taxes, which will get passed on to the consumers – who would now have more discretionary $$.
“The announcement did not reveal how much Tennessee would be paying in incentives for the project.”
Of course not. Lee and his minions are hoping that we taxpayers will forget all about their ridiculous giveaways before the amount gets posted on the web page.
Cut my taxes and quite giving away the farm.
Remember Solyndra,…I’m concerned that our Government is pouring taxpayer money into these “green EV-related” industries, while at the same time, the inventory of unsold F-150 Lightning and other EV’s is building. People are just not interested in an overpriced vehicle that you have to worry about keeping charged and getting stranded due to their terrible range and long charging time. Unless someone is retired, or never goes very far from home, and has the time to wait on a charger for 45 minutes at a time, they just aren’t practical, and may never be. On top of all this, they are NOT “electric”,…they are battery operated cars – currently being charged by coal-fired and natural gas-fired power-plants.
boondoggle noun (boon-dog-uhl, -daw-guhl}: a wasteful and worthless project undertaken for political, corporate, or personal gain, typically a government project funded by taxpayers